Ieng Sary Seeks Financial Help to Defense His Trial

PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA: Ieng Sary(pictured), who served as foreign minister in Cambodia's brutal Khmer Rouge regime, claimed he and his wife need financial aid to defend themselves before the U.N.-supported genocide tribunal, according to a statement issued Tuesday (13 Nov).
The demand by Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith, revealed in court documents released Tuesday, was disparaged by fellow Cambodians, who said they lived a relatively lavish life in the capital, Phnom Penh.
The couple, both top leaders in the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime, were charged with crimes against humanity following their arrest Monday (12 Nov), the tribunal said. Ieng Sary was also charged with war crimes.
Ieng Sary and his wife said they do not have the means to pay for their legal fees, the tribunal's defense support section said in a statement Tuesday, adding that the couple were in the process of assembling their defense team.
Rupert Skilbeck, the head of the section, said the U.N. will pay the legal fees for all defendants until the end of this year. It is currently assessing the defendants' financial situations to decide whether or not to continue helping them financially.
Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith were members of the inner circle of the Khmer Rouge. They were French-educated like the group's late charismatic leader Pol Pot, whose extremist policies turned the country into a virtual charnel house. The connection was linked by marriage: Ieng Thirith's sister Khieu Ponnary was Pol Pot's first wife.
Their arrests have brought to four the number of Khmer Rouge suspects detained for trials by the tribunal.
"It's a big step because they are big fish," said Kek Galabru, president of the Cambodian human rights group Licadho.
"It is a reunion of former comrades, who together led the country to Year Zero and had all people they distrusted labeled as enemies and killed _ a mistake history cannot forgive," said an editorial in the newspaper Koh Santepheap -- Island of Peace.
"Year Zero" refers to 1975, when the Khmer Rouge seized control with a radical vision of demolishing the nation and rebuilding it from scratch. The regime was blamed for the deaths of some 1.7 million people from starvation, disease, overwork and execution. None of the group's leaders has yet faced trial.
Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith defected to the government in 1996 and have been living in relative comfort since then. A tribunal document released this week said he is 82 years old, and she is 75.
People familiar with the lifestyle of Ieng Sary and his wife say they are financially well-off. They pointed to the villa the couple own in Phnom Penh, their Toyota Land Cruiser and their ability to regularly travel by plane for medical treatment in neighboring Thailand.
That they are able to live comfortably in terms of their spending, travel and property makes their claims of destitution "laughable" and "ludicrous," said Theary Seng, director of the Cambodian nonprofit group Center for Social Development.
"Why don't they sell their villa" to finance their legal fees, Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, wondered out loud. His group researches Khmer Rouge atrocities.
The arrests came almost three decades after the Khmer Rouge fell from power, with many fearing the aging suspects might die before they ever see a courtroom. Trials are expected to begin next year.
The U.N.-assisted tribunal was created last year after seven years of contentious negotiations between the United Nations and Cambodia.
Ieng Sary, "promoted, instigated, facilitated, encouraged and/or condoned the perpetration of the crimes" when the Khmer Rouge held power, according to a July 18 document presented by the tribunal's prosecutors to its investigating judges.
The document said there was evidence of Ieng Sary's participation in crimes which included planning, directing and coordinating Khmer Rouge "policies of forcible transfer, forced labor and unlawful killings."
The alleged crimes of his wife, Ieng Thirith, include her participation in "planning, direction, coordination and ordering of widespread purges ... and unlawful killing or murder of staff members from within the Ministry of Social Affairs," the prosecutors said.
Nuon Chea, the former Khmer Rouge ideologist, and Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, who headed the Khmer Rouge S-21 torture center, were detained earlier this year on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. (By KER MUNTHIT/ AP)